It’s a time-honored custom unique to New England– the passing of the Boston Post Cane to the town’s oldest resident. Following a lapse of many years, Wiscasset is renewing the tradition carried on by Woolwich and many other Maine communities.

According to information Woolwich compiled, Edwin Grozier, publisher of The Boston Post, had hundreds of canes made in 1909 to promote his newspaper. They went to small towns in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. Grozier asked selectmen to present the cane to the oldest man in town. The cane, really more of a walking stick, was his for as long as he lived, or until he moved away. It then passed to the next oldest man.

In the 1930s, the custom changed to include the oldest woman.

The canes were manufactured by J.F. Fradley & Co. of New York City. Each was handmade from seasoned, African ebony imported from the Congo. They were topped with a 14-karat gold head and engraved, “Presented by the Boston Post to the OLDEST CITIZEN. To be transmitted.” A space was left for the town to engrave its name.

Not everyone likes the idea of being known as the town’s oldest person. Larry Gordon of Federal Street recalls a time in the 1970s when nobody in Wiscasset wanted the cane. “I remember trying to pass it along only to have the man or woman we offered it too tell us they didn’t want it.”

Gordon, who was a Wiscasset selectman 27 years, said the board eventually gave up trying and put the cane in the vault at the town office. “As far as I know it’s still there. I’m not sure that I’d want to be known as the oldest person in town. Most people are like Jack Benny, they don’t ever like to admit how old they are.” Benny, a 1930s radio comedian, use to joke he “wasn’t a day over 39 years old.

The Boston Post ceased publication in 1957, but the tradition of passing on the cane has survived, even if some of the originals have disappeared or, in recent times, wound up for sale on eBay.

Town Manager Marian Anderson presented selectmen with Wiscasset’s new Boston Post Cane at their Jan. 17 meeting. The town office bought its replica cane from the town of Peterborough, New Hampshire that has a supply on hand that it sells. Several manufacturers in Maine and Massachusetts custom-make replicas of the cane to order.

Wiscasset’s original Boston Post Cane remains in the vault for safe keeping.